


A Different Game

by thelordofthehighfort



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 03:17:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6937483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelordofthehighfort/pseuds/thelordofthehighfort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no minor characters, only other protagonists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Different Game

**Author's Note:**

> One of my favorite things about GRRM's writing has to be the empty spaces--the endless number of minor characters who blip across the pages, each with their own novel that just hasn't been written. My protagonist, however, is my own, and he just plays in Martin's playground.

The Hedge Knight

Gwayne was no stranger to the whims of the elements, but this had to be a new low. The rain poured down from the heavens, off the curved roof of the wheelhouse, and directly onto his halfhelm and down his collar. He’d move, but the caravan master, a man named Hewlett, had insisted on him riding “egg-zackly five paces to the right of the wag-on, see-er”, which happened to be just out of shelter and just in the path of the downflow. And apparently, Hewlett knew best. He was a self-professed “veteran of maaaaany a campaign” as he was fond of boasting in that high, wheedling, voice of his, though if the lout had ever ridden amongst a lord’s levies, Gwayne doubted he’d ever left the baggage train. His sword was cheap and dull steel with a ruby set in the hilt—Hewlett was fond of riding with the blade out, held at an angle he no doubt learned from some statue. The man was fat and balding, looking more a Gulltown money-lender than the grizzled man-at-arms he claimed to be. However lackluster the man’s physical presence however, Gwayne could not deny that he took care of his horse, a bay mare that looked as well-fed as any corn-fed lordling. The magnificent creature carried the man as he rode up and down the convoy, trotting faithfully as the man scrutinized every man of the escort for the smallest “malfeeeeasance of duty” and licked the boots of any merchant with two coins to rub together. The sound of hoof-beats fast approaching from behind broke him from his reverie, and he turned in his seat to see the man in question galloping down on him.

“Serrr Gwaaayne!” Hewlett did not look happy, water flying from the brim of his broad kettle-helm as he rode. He reined his palfrey in next to Ser Gwayne, and panted for a moment. “You will take up position next to the last wagon. Master Vyckian has expressed a desire to speak to you. Why that might be I have no idea, but you will not waste his time. He is an impoooortant man, and you are, well… some son of the hedges, heh.” Gwayne touched a knuckle to his drenched helm and tapped Gringolet with the reins. He wouldn’t risk swallowing half the Narrow Sea for an answer. The obedient charger broke into a trot, and soon they were next to the wagon belonging to Master Vyckian.

“Fancy meeting a fellow man of the Rills in these gods-forsaken Southron lands, ser.” The merchant was a tall man with a narrow face and a narrower frame. Gwayne stiffened. To his knowledge, none of their charges knew anything about him beyond his name and that he wore a “ser” in front of it. The merchant noticed his ill ease. “Don’t be cross, ser. I was speaking with your young squire earlier. The lad mentioned that you hailed from Coldwolf Creek. I grew up in Harwyn’s Crossing, barely ten leagues away.” 

Gwayne’s squire was a lad named Ryman Turnberry, a minor son of a minor house in the Westerlands. Gwayne had found him serving as a page at Ashemark, and been asked to take him on after the lad wounded a cousin of Lord Lefford’s with a stray arrow. Rumor had it that little Ryman, then a boy of eight, had not missed at all—rumor also had it that he’d caught the Lefford horse-whipping a kitchen-maid the day before. No matter what rumor said or didn’t say, Ser Lancel’s wound festered and he left his sickbed without his sword arm, and Ryman Turnberry, son of Ser Leland Turnberry, had been packaged off on a passing hedge knight. Gwayne looked over at the lad in question—Hewlett had assigned the squire as a "scout", which only meant that Ryman rode somewhere behind the party. 

“If only he could clean armor as well he speaks.” Gwayne said, scowling. “My kin have rode the Rills since the Dustins ruled as Barrow-kings, Master Vyckian. Two of my cousins married maids of Harwyn’s Crossing.”

“And regretted it, no doubt.” The merchant smiled. “My father was fond of saying that if the women-folk of Harwyn’s Crossing went to war instead of gossiping, the Seven Kingdoms would burn like yesterday’s dinner.” Gwayne nodded weakly. 

“Perhaps that is why a man is braving the worst storm Seagard has seen in years rather sitting in front of a warm hearth with his no doubt lovely wife.” Before the merchant could reply, the sound of approaching hoofbeats came from the further up the train. They grew louder as rider and horse appeared. A merchant’s boy galloped down towards them, shouting.

“Bandits! Many bandits!” He passed them without slowing down, eyes white with fear.

Gwayne drew his longsword. “Hide!” He growled, and kicked Gringolet into a gallop. He shot up the caravan--a moment later, he was alongside the other riders of the escort. He looked down the line—there were eleven men to his left and two to his right. There were greybeards and green boys--some hedge knights like him clad in mail and leathers, others crofters' sons with nothing more than cloth to stop a blade. Hewlett trotted ahead a few paces.

“Men of the guard!” He said, and then faltered. Out of the dusky gloom ahead appeared shapes. Shapes that became silhouettes, silhouettes that became men. Armed men, with long spears and cold steel: greed and violence in their eyes and death in their hands. “Father above…” Hewlett’s voice trailed off. The outlaws had the numbers, for sure—the first rank alone had fifteen abreast. 

“Gentle sers.” An outlaw spurred his horse forward. A powerfully built man, bearded, with long flowing black hair, on a malnourished nag—he could not have been more Hewlett’s opposite. “My name is Ben Blackheart. These are my men, and this is now my caravan. Step aside, and you will live. Resist, and you will die howling for quarter.” 

Hewlett waved his sword like a hero in a painting. “Over my dead body, you scum.” He dug his spurs deep. “At them, men! Hewlett! Hewlett and Gulltown!!!” Then they were charging, steel out. The bandits grew larger and larger as they closed, until Gwayne was parrying a spear aside and smashing the backswing into the man opposite’s shoulder. Then he was smashing his hilt into the face of the man’s helmet to send him toppling from the saddle in a spray of blood and whirling, his sword slashing through the air in an arc of light to block a swinging long axe from splitting his head in two. The head flew from the polearm, leaving a bare shaft, and a moment later, the head of its wielder joined it on the ground next to it. Then he was five paces behind the enemy, pulling up Gringolet and turning. The ground was littered with the dead and the dying. The air was rent with screams, some shouting the names of lords, others castles; still others shouted for their others. Hewlett was the first man of the escort he saw, crossing blades with the outlaw leader, his blood gushing forth from a wound in his side, staining his tunic. Any semblance of order or formation had been lost. Gwayne rode down a dismounted outlaw from behind as he struggled to his feet—a second later, he was parrying a thrust from his right that seemed to come from nowhere. But as he swung his blade down, burying it deep into the unlucky spearman’s helm, he felt a great force slam into him from behind and he toppled headfirst, the ground rushing to meet him. 

He landed squarely atop the dying spearman, stunned. And for a moment, the world moved without him. He could feel his attacker roll off of him, diving no doubt for some weapon he’d lost during the fracas. Summoning all his strength, he rolled onto his back, yanking the dagger from the belt of the bandit beneath, rising to one knee in a fluid motion. The bandit now loomed above him, a burly clansman, a battle-axe raised above his head to strike. Gwayne moved, quick as a cat, whipping his legs forward to knock the man’s feet from under him, and as he fell bellowing, drove the dagger into his throat. He heard hoofbeats break through the chaos of battle, and whirled to see an horseman riding towards him, a lance couched and ready. There was no time, nowhere to go. Gwayne caught the battle-axe as it fell from the dying man’s hands, and with both hands, reared back and threw, with all the strength he could. The axe whirled, through the air… for a moment, Gwayne thought he’d judged the distance wrong. But then it was taking the charging horse straight in the chest, then the beast was stumbling, and plunging headfirst into the dust, his rider thrown bouncing forward onto the ground like a rag doll. Then as if in a dream, Gwayne was retrieving his longsword and slashing forward, forward into the rider’s throat. He wiped the blood from his face and looked about for Gringolet—the stallion was nowhere to be seen.

He turned, and ran back into the fray. By now, no one remained ahorse. A bandit ducked a slash, stepped forward, and plunged his dirk into the belly of a fat merchant, who’d stayed and fought intead of escaping with his goods and died violently for his trouble. Gwayne crossed blades briefly with some pockmarked lad who had the look of a farmhand about before the boy fell to a crossbow bolt, then cut down some hardfaced man in a chainmail byrnie who’d been too slow. He pivoted over the dead man, searching for the next foe, when what felt like an elephant slammed into his back, driving him back into the mud. Strong hands pinioned his arms behind him, and the longsword was wrestled from his fingers. He was dragged to his feet, and used the momentum to send a boot flying into some unlucky’s bugger’s crotch—an old man, who promptly dropped to his knees screaming. He slammed the sharp tip of his helm backwards into one of his captors’ faces, and for a moment, he was free, wrenching the dagger from his belt, plunging it into some fool’s nose, before the men behind him recovered their wits. Then he was on the ground, and they—three of them, it felt like, were pummeling him with cudgels. Pain clouded his vision, and he…

The next moment, he was being held upright… helm, gone…. His captors seemed to have formed some sort of ring… He blinked and realized his hands were bound behind him as the scene took shape before him. Hewlett, bleeding from a hundred wounds, holding his sword with both hands, panting as he stared down the man who would kill him… Opposite, the man who had called himself Ben Blackheart laughed at his mortally wounded foe. Blackheart was clad in grey plate fit for a knight, wielding his steel with an ease that spoke of years of experience. The outlaws were making a game of it, coin changing hands as bets were laid on how long the fat man would last. Hewlett made a wild swing at the bandit’s grinning mug, which the man parried as easily someone might scratch their nose. Hewlett reeled back immediately, barely dodging the highwayman’s crisp riposte. He took a few steps back, coughing blood… the outlaws behind him shoved him forward. Hewlett seemed to stumble forward, seemed to lose his feet, but then he was up, his eyes lit with the bright fury of a man who knows he is about to die.

“Hewlett! Hewlett, and Gulltown!” And he swung, his rusty sword now an arc of light. The sudden attack slipped beneath the big man’s guard, and now he was bleeding. Hewlett had somehow managed to strike him cleanly in the joint above the foot. He roared with pain, and his own steel flashed and Hewlett’s shortsword flew from his grasp to land ten feet away. For a moment, Hewlett reeled back, for a moment, he looked as though he’d break and run, then drew himself up to stare the Stranger in the face. Ben Blackheart cackled madly, and ran him through. With a good foot of steel protruding from his back, Hewlett gasped for breath. The brave man’s eyes found Gwayne’s, and he crashed to his knees.  
“You… you’re… out of plaaaace, ser.” Hewlett landed face first on the ground, and convulsed as the bandit raised both his hands above his head to the cheers of his men. Gwayne strained against the bonds with rage, as Hewlett rolled the dead man over and pulled his sword free. 

“Younes, put our noble knight out of his misery.” He said. “I’ll ride ahead and tell the women to prepare for a feast.” A lad brought him his nag, but he shook his head. “Bring me that mare this fool rode.” He disappeared into the darkness, at least half the bandits at his back. “Younes” was a stocky sandy Dornishman in a tunic soiled with grease. He pulled a curved dagger from his belt and looked at Gwayne through slitty eyes filled with rage and loss. 

“You know, ser.” He spat the honorific like a curse. “You killed three of my friends today. One of them happened to be my only brother.” Gwayne glared back at him. _Sorry._  
“Hewlett was a pompous man, but he had a family as well. Two sons and another on the way. My squire, Ryman, out there somewhere…” _Poor lad, and I’d promised his father…._ “had a family. And you slew them for a shipment of silk.”  
“There’s silk in there, eh?” Younes’ piggy eye narrowed further with greed. “No matter. You’ll join them soon enough.” He raised the dagger. Gwayne closed his eyes.  
“Do it. Do it fast. Don’t mess around or anything.” And then, trumpets blared, and the snick-snick of bows releasing. Gwayne opened his eyes. An arrow protruded from Younes’ throat, and another from his left eye. Both were fletched with purple feathers.  
Gwayne groaned, recognizing the colors, and looked to see five knights in tabards of House Mallister burst through the trees, lances ready. The few brigands that ran to meet them died quickly enough, by lance or by sword. The rest broke, but were quickly run down, either by the blades of the hunting party that followed or their arrows. Gwayne watched as his rescuers fanned out across the clearing, weapons drawn. Two ran towards him—Mallister bannermen in hunting clothes and purple sashes. As they drew nearer, Gwayne realized he knew them.

“Is that you, Gwayne?” The first man said, stopping short with surprise. Gwayne lifted his head.

“Petyr. Cut me loose, will you?” Ser Petyr Hendon, the Knight of the Rooster’s Call, was a tall, strapping man with a crest of bright red hair. They’d been boys together once. Petyr was fond of good wine and pretty women. From the looks of the wineskin that hung from his belt and the lady’s garter about an arm, not much had changed. 

“Kermit, see to Ser Gwayne.” His companion, Kermit, the bastard son of a distant Tully cousin, was his squire. _Had_ been, at least. Perhaps he’d been knighted. He’d been a nervous boy with shaky hands, dangerously pitiful with the bow but almost elegant with a mace. The boy drew a knife. His hands still shook.

Freed, Gwayne shakily got to his feet, retrieved his helm and picked his longsword up off the ground . He offered Kermit a hand… and then dropped to his knees once more. He put a hand to his shoulder… it came away bloody. He put it back… and it came away with an arrow. Purple fletching… more blood. _Damn Mallisters._ Then darkness.


End file.
